CMLT-C 200 HONORS SEMINAR (3 CR.)
Selected authors and topics, ranging from traditional to modern; for example, Athens and Jerusalem: The Origins of Western Literature. Traditional or current debates and issues of a critical, theoretical, or historical nature. Comparative methodology, interdisciplinary approach.
2 classes found
Fall 2024
Component | Credits | Class | Status | Time | Day | Facility | Instructor |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
LEC | 3 | 13436 | Open | 11:30 a.m.–12:45 p.m. | TR | BH 215 | Van der Laan S |
Regular Academic Session / In Person
LEC 13436: Total Seats: 25 / Available: 24 / Waitlisted: 0
Lecture (LEC)
- IUB GenEd A&H credit
- COLL (CASE) A&H Breadth of Inq
- Above class is open to ASURE students only
- Permission is required to drop this course. Please contact asure@iu.edu
- Above class counts for honors for Hutton Honors College students
- IUB GenEd A&H credit
- COLL (CASE) A&H Breadth of Inquiry credit
Topic: Mythic remakes
How do stories shape our lives, our worlds, our relationships? How much power do we give the narratives that other people, or society at large, create for us? How do we take control of our own narratives, or expose and rewrite the fictions that shape our cultures? The term metafiction describes those stories, plays, films, and other media that draw attention to their nature as fictions - as creations of the human imagination - in order to blur the lines between the worlds of the text (or stage, or film) and the reader (or audience) and to suggest that the reader's world too is shaped by language and narrative, and thus capable of being reimagined and rewritten. This course will introduce students to both the mind-bending genre of metafiction and the discipline of comparative literature, which brings together literature and other arts from around the world to explore pressing questions across national, historical, cultural, and linguistic borders. We will read William Shakespeare's Hamlet and Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the medieval Middle Eastern folktales collected in the One Thousand and One Nights and works inspired by them from Jorge Luís Borges' short stories to Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler to Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories - or perhaps Jamila Ahmed's newly-published Every Rising Sun. By pairing classics with modern reinterpretations, will discover how works cross borders of time, space, and language; how texts create conversations among themselves; and how creators interrogate their predecessors, reimagine their traditions, and make old and foreign texts live again in new contexts.
Component | Credits | Class | Status | Time | Day | Facility | Instructor |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
LEC | 3 | 30972 | Open | 9:45 a.m.–11:00 a.m. | TR | BH 245 | Turk J |
Regular Academic Session / In Person
LEC 30972: Total Seats: 25 / Available: 19 / Waitlisted: 0
Lecture (LEC)
- COLL (CASE) A&H Breadth of Inq
- IUB GenEd A&H credit
- IUB GenEd A&H credit
- COLL (CASE) A&H Breadth of Inquiry credit
Topic: Lightness
The Lightness of Being The dream of flying is as old as human life. Leaving the world of gravity behind is a phantasm with many variants, ranging from Icarus in Greek mythology to Leonardo da Vinci¿s sketches of flying machines. Different forms of dance also count among the art forms that allow humans to defy the heaviness of existence through movement and choreography. But defying the heaviness of our earthly life is only one of the many manifestations of a much wider phenomenon: the lightness of being. Lightness is far from superficial. Rather, it is a sophisticated experience that forms an important ingredient enabling us to live a fulfilled human life in a world of existential weight. Lightness is also one of the very important achievements of artistic endeavors. This course in comparative literature studies a wide range of the canonic literary texts and films that allow us to experience and explore lightness from Greek comedy to screwball comedy, from modern dance to existentialist novels. We will explore the important role that forms of lightness play in our life. Some of them, for example Greek tragedy, lead to a catharsis that purges us from emotions such as fear and pity. Comedy, by contrast, "relieves" us through laughter and allows us to alleviate the burdens of our life. What are the different modalities of experience art enables that make us feel light? The course will also offer an intensive writing component. Course materials (not finalized): Texts: Albert Camus, The Stranger Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being Molière, Don Juan Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing Sophocles, Oedipus Films: Maren Ade, Toni Erdmann Howard Hawks, Bringing up Baby Billy Wilder, Some Like it Hot Wim Wenders, Pina